Yesterday marked another major milestone in aerospace history. For the very first time, an orbital-class rocket booster that had already been to space and returned was launched again. The SES-10 mission utilised a Falcon 9 first stage that had previously flown in April of last year.



Watching the booster not only launch a commercial payload successfully but then turn around and land itself on a drone ship for a second time was spectacular. This is the holy grail of rocketry that engineers have been chasing for decades. Throwing away millions of dollars of precision machinery after a single use is finally becoming a thing of the past.